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  1. TIM FORSTER

    Not a Moment to Lose… Battle of the Bulge, Ardennes, December 1944

    Thanks for all the lovely comments / horseshoe theories guys. More Shed Shennigans I achieved the wood texture by using various shades of MIG wood paints (they come in the Weapons and Tools sets) and wet-blending them over the black base colour, then applying washes. Everything here is...
  2. TIM FORSTER

    Not a Moment to Lose… Battle of the Bulge, Ardennes, December 1944

    Bring on the black and let the pre-shading commence! So, as I said, I decided to give the buildings a coat of Mr Surfacer black. This was from a spray can (which is expensive - I have now bought several jars of the stuff). The rest of the base was then covered in a slurry of PVA and cheap...
  3. TIM FORSTER

    Not a Moment to Lose… Battle of the Bulge, Ardennes, December 1944

    THE CORRUGATION MACHINE! (AKA the most innocent fun I have had in ages) To add some more variety and break up the monotony of laying tiles I decided that my shed should have a corrugated roof. So I started to look at the options… I had some embossed ‘corrugated’ metal sheeting in my stash...
  4. TIM FORSTER

    Not a Moment to Lose… Battle of the Bulge, Ardennes, December 1944

    Thanks guys. I thought it was time to start looking at the composition of figures and vehicles. The idea I had from the start was that of the German recce group having just arrived at the farmhouse… out of sight is a broken down jeep and a group of GIs who have just realised their predicament...
  5. TIM FORSTER

    Not a Moment to Lose… Battle of the Bulge, Ardennes, December 1944

    Thanks guys. More progress is (slowly) being made... Building a shed Here you can see the beginnings of the out-house that I had planned for the upper part of the diorama. This helps to create a backdrop to the broken-down jeep which is going to be positioned behind the farmhouse and just...
  6. TIM FORSTER

    Not a Moment to Lose… Battle of the Bulge, Ardennes, December 1944

    The tiling continues... Well it was certainly a relief when I reached the last tile. What I find interesting is the way that some of the tiles have a different shade even though they are all cut from the same piece of black card. I guess it must be the way they reflect the light. It...
  7. TIM FORSTER

    Not a Moment to Lose… Battle of the Bulge, Ardennes, December 1944

    Raising the roof part 3… [Otherwise known as tiling madness] So diamond pattern roof tiles… I’ve learnt a lot about these of late. I started to notice them as I looked at images of the towns and villages along Peiper’s advance. By way of example, have a look at these images taken of abandoned...
  8. TIM FORSTER

    Not a Moment to Lose… Battle of the Bulge, Ardennes, December 1944

    Anyway, I should have said Happy New Year to all. Although it was busy in our house over Christmas, I did find time to actually make some progress. Raising the roof I guess if you are building a REAL house then putting the roof on is always going to be the crowning achievement… Because I...
  9. TIM FORSTER

    Not a Moment to Lose… Battle of the Bulge, Ardennes, December 1944

    Avoiding a lop-sided house One problem that only emerged once I had started putting the walls together was how to level the building within the base. This may sound obvious, but given the sharp slope I had chosen for the terrain, once the structure was in place it looked a little lop-sided. In...
  10. TIM FORSTER

    Not a Moment to Lose… Battle of the Bulge, Ardennes, December 1944

    So I have actually made quite a lot of progress since my last post, although not everything will be obvious here. The advantage of building everything from flat sides is that you can not only lay them flat on the workbench whilst scribing and shaping the stones and bricks, but also detail the...
  11. TIM FORSTER

    Not a Moment to Lose… Battle of the Bulge, Ardennes, December 1944

    Let the cutting and scribing commence! Although Nightshift / Martin Kovac gave me some of the inspiration for this build, I didn’t exactly copy his method. He tends to make structures that sit at the back of his dioramas and which are only partial in depth, so his use of foam blocks makes...
  12. TIM FORSTER

    Not a Moment to Lose… Battle of the Bulge, Ardennes, December 1944

    Materials… The last time I made buildings (on my ‘Liberation, Italy 1944’ dio) was also my first attempt since my teens - way, wayback in the 1980s. My older self had used thin plywood, laboriously cut to shape with a fret saw, then covered in thin plaster. When I made my Italian church (a few...
  13. TIM FORSTER

    Not a Moment to Lose… Battle of the Bulge, Ardennes, December 1944

    Building the Building So once I had the basic shape worked out in rough card I began to build the farm house again using thinner card. This meant that I could draw the precise dimensions on to the surface in pencil and cut out the apertures using a sharp scalpel. This does not have to be a...
  14. TIM FORSTER

    Not a Moment to Lose… Battle of the Bulge, Ardennes, December 1944

    Jacko, Richard, I am more than happy to go on a bit of a nostalgia trip where Verlinden was concerned - although perhaps he deserves his own thread! My first inspiration towards 1/35 armour modelling came with my very first issue of Military Modelling magazine in January 1977... I was only 8...
  15. TIM FORSTER

    Not a Moment to Lose… Battle of the Bulge, Ardennes, December 1944

    Thanks so much guys, that is invaluable info. Looking for the right building So this next bit was fun - even if a bit slow. I went onto Google Maps Streetview and followed a few routes away from the Kaiserbarracke crossroads in the direction of German advance. All the time I was looking for...
  16. TIM FORSTER

    Not a Moment to Lose… Battle of the Bulge, Ardennes, December 1944

    Snow or no snow? The whole snow / no snow thing is probably incapable of resolution. We all know that in hilly areas - especially those high above sea level - the climate can be pretty local. Also, if snow has already fallen some days before, patches can linger on hill sides and in crevices...
  17. TIM FORSTER

    Not a Moment to Lose… Battle of the Bulge, Ardennes, December 1944

    A bit more historical context before I get on with the build. All of the above contemporary images come from cine film and stills taken by the Germans around the Kaiserbarracke crossroads. The footage was later captured by the Allies and still images have appeared in many books and all over the...
  18. TIM FORSTER

    Not a Moment to Lose… Battle of the Bulge, Ardennes, December 1944

    Well, I’m back! Rumours of my demise have been greatly exaggerated, etc… Looking back I can see that it was November 21 that I finished my last project: https://www.scale-models.co.uk/threads/the-road-to-singapore-malaya-1941-42.34522/ Coming before that one was this...
  19. TIM FORSTER

    The Road to Singapore: Malaya 1941-42

    Sorry for the long silence... work picking up and two teenagers doing A levels and GCSEs respectively hasn't helped! But, rest assured, progress is being made! A few more details before I get on to painting… One useful part of the Fine Molds kit which did not come with the Dragon equivalent...
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